From: Logical Language Group Message-Id: <199407291753.AA29870@access2.digex.net> Subject: Re: ga'i[nai] (was: ciska bai tu'a zo bai) To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Date: Fri, 29 Jul 1994 13:53:28 -0400 (ADT) Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net (Logical Language Group) In-Reply-To: <199407261346.AA19753@nfs1.digex.net> from "Colin Fine" at Jul 26, 94 02:31:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2096 Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Jul 29 13:53:37 1994 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab la kolin. cusku di'e > I think Nick has given us a very valuable explication of the "ga'i" > problem, but we're still in knots. I would like to propose a Gordian > solution: > > "ga'i" is not an honorific. > > Ga'i (ga'inai) expresses an attitude of hauteur (humility) >on the part of > the speaker >in respect of (not >relative to) the item it's attached to. No, I think that "relative to" is correct, insofar as I understand your distinction. > (OK, so a bare ga'i is honorific of the self, but that's not in the usual > gamut of honorifics). Yes. It is an absolute-rank deixis particle. > Any honorific effect is a contextually (and presumably socially) determined > pragmatic consequence, not in the semantics of the UI > > Thus in the original > =JL> > 7.1) ko ga'inai nenri klama le mi zdani > =JL> > you-imperative [low-rank!] enter type-of come-to my house. > =JL> > Honorable one, enter my unworthy house. > > the literal translation is quite correct, and the 'normal' (? looks more > like cod-Chinese to me) Ham-Japanese, actually. Nick complained loudly anent this, and I fixed it: the colloquial translation now says simply "I would be honored if you would enter my residence." > one is plausible but not forced: it could equally > be > "I humbly instruct you to come in to my splendid house", You are right, since there is no rank marking on "house" at all. One deficiency of the current system is that there is no way of indicating the relative ranks of two things/persons neither of whom is the speaker: the system cannot be manipulated into referring to, say, "Your Majesty's hovel", indicating that the house's rank is much lower than the listener's. > though I accept that this is less plausible. Probably. > Nick's example > le patfu cu klama vauga'inai > > means > Father is coming (and I am humble about that) > > It says nothing whatever about whether I am honoring father, the hearer, > both or neither. Correct. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.